


Smoke and Flame

by glorious_spoon



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fire, First Time, Hurt Jack, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pining, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8358607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: When Jack ends up back in California for reasons of his own, he gets tangled up in a mob case involving suspicious fires along with Peggy and Daniel. But the investigation is about to take a deadly turn...





	1. Chapter 1

Carter and Sousa were both in the office when Jack got in, heads bent over a mess of files and photographs spread across the desk. Their hips and shoulders were bumping companionably, no personal space to be seen.

So that seemed to be going well, anyway. At least something was.

“—had a thought about that, actually,” Carter was saying as he pushed the door open. “We couldn’t make sense of this first attack.”

“No mob ties at all, as far as we can tell,” Sousa agreed, frowning down at the paper.

“And that was the one with the most fatalities. The other two were night watchmen—collateral damage. If Agent Fuchida is right about the buildings being the real targets…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up and saw Jack standing in the doorway. “Jack. What on earth...”

Sousa looked up too. “Thompson? What are you doing here?”

Jack tried out a smile. “What, a guy can’t just drop in on his two favorite agents?”

“That’s a long plane ride just to drop in,” Sousa said, his gaze sharpening.

“Chief’s prerogative. Besides, I had other business to take care of,” Jack said, which was more or less true. Pleading the SSR’s case in front of a panel of hostile Congressmen probably counted as other business, anyway. “What are you working on?”

Sousa gave him a long, level look, then pushed a file across the desk. “See for yourself.”

“Mob case, huh?” Jack asked, flipping it open. Immediately, he winced. The gutted, burnt shells of buildings looked like something out of a war zone, and he hadn’t seen so many charred bodies since Okinawa. “Jeez, leave you two alone for a couple of months…”

Sousa didn’t rise to the bait. “Suspect’s name is Giovanni Dellarosa.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t. He’s small-time—or he was, until his rivals’ businesses all started going up in smoke.”

“So why’s the SSR involved? Sounds like a job for the local boys.”

“It was,” Carter interjected. “Until we discovered that someone had broken into Isodyne’s old labs during the investigation and made off with a number of highly volatile items. One of which, we suspect, was used to do this.” Her manicured finger tapped a blown-up photo of a scorched two-story building. A tilting sign out front, still legible, read _Blue Sundown_. None of the buildings on either side of it looked as though they’d been touched at all; in face, there was a clean, curving line on the sidewalk where the scorch marks just stopped. “Whatever it is, it allows for an incredibly intense, incredibly controlled burn. The fires have been devastating, impossible to put out, but none of them have spread. He’s creating some kind of containment field.”

“The guy who owns the first night club was a shareholder at Isodyne,” Sousa added. “Herman Sawyer. They’re bringing him in now for questioning.” He gave Jack another considering look. “You want in?”

“What the hell, why not.” The first round of meetings didn’t start for another two days, and he’d come in early—he’d admit to himself anyway—fully intending to hang around the Los Angeles office and make a nuisance of himself. It was looking increasingly like his career with the SSR was numbered in weeks, if not days, so he might as well take the chance while he still could. One last hurrah, as it were.

That, and he’d really missed the two of them. God help him.

* * *

Sawyer was a skinny little rat of a man in an expensive but poorly-tailored suit, anxious and twitchy enough that he actually jumped when Jack and Sousa walked into the room. Jack hadn’t recognized him by name, but now that he saw the guy, he was pretty sure he’d met him a time or two. Plenty of family money, no brains to speak of; not quite polished enough for the Arena Club, at least not the inner circle. The kind of man who hung on around the edges of real power, hoping for scraps.

Like Jack himself not that long ago.

He shrugged off that thought, settling himself at the table. Sousa hung back by the door: apparently, Jack was taking the lead in this particular interrogation. Fine, then. “So, Herman—do you mind if I call you Herman?—what can you tell us about Giovanni Dellarosa?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Sawyer whined, pressing a handkerchief to his still-bleeding nose. Apparently he’d managed to run face-first into a brick wall trying to escape the cops.

A criminal mastermind, the guy was not.

“Herman, come on,” Jack said reasonably, rolling back his sleeves, flexing his fingers. Sawyer’s eyes tracked his movements anxiously. Beads of sweat were standing on his pasty skin. Jack was pretty sure he wasn’t gonna have to hit him at all to get him to sing, but there was no reason to tell _him_ that. “You seem like a sensible kind of guy to me. You’re already going down for corporate theft and espionage; you really want to go down for murder, too?”

“Murder? I didn’t—”

“—kill anybody? Funny, because our guys hauled about thirty stiffs out of the Blue Sundown last week. What was left of it, anyway. You own the place, you must have heard about it.”

“That was a ruptured gas main, I already told the investigators—”

“That’s not what the gas company has to say,” Sousa said from the door. “Or the investigating officers, for that matter. Everything in the building was burnt to a crisp, nothing on the outside was touched. Didn’t even scorch the veneer. Fire department sent every truck they had and couldn’t put a dent in it, the damn thing burned for three days straight. Does that sound like a ruptured gas main to you?”

“I’m not a scientist,” Sawyer said sulkily. “You tell me.”

“Right, you’re not a scientist,” Jack said slowly, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles. “But you did have access to the labs at Isodyne Energy, didn’t you?”

Sawyer went a shade paler. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You tell me. Word around town is, you’ve been having some money troubles lately. Made a few bad investments. You like to gamble, Herman?”

Sawyer didn’t answer. To his left, he could sense Sousa giving him a look of mild exasperation, but he ignored it. Interrogation was half theatrics, anyway. Get the guy off-balance, make him sweat. Pain was only part of the equation, and not always a necessary part—the important thing was fear. Carter got that; Sousa had always been a little too nice to be much good at it.

“Me, I like poker. You need both luck and skill to make any money on it, but the thing is…” Jack leaned forward. “You have to know when to walk away from the table. I’ll give you one more chance to start talking, and then we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Dellarosa is the one we want,” Sousa added mildly. “Give us enough to take him down, and I’m sure the D.A. will be happy to make a deal. But that offer expires in about thirty seconds.”

Jack cracked his knuckles again.

“Okay, okay,” Sawyer said quickly. “You want Dellarosa, I can give you Dellarosa. Just don’t tell him where you got it from, huh?”

“We’re not really in the habit of having heart-to-hearts with the guys we arrest,” Jack said. “Start talking.”

“Okay, okay. You have to understand, I didn’t realize what that thing did, okay? I thought it was just some kind of new power source and I—I needed the money.”

“Sure, we understand. How does it work?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Sawyer said desperately. “The lab boys said it was some kind of—of solar power battery? Like a field generator? I didn’t understand much of it.”

Sousa limped forward and slapped a large, glossy photograph down on the table. It was one of the more gruesome crime-scene pictures: twisted, blackened corpses lined the sidewalk beneath the shadow of the burnt-out building. “Does this look like something a solar powered battery could do?”

Sawyer flinched, turning a pasty, sickly shade of gray. “I swear to God, I had no idea. No idea at all.”

“What did you think a mob boss wanted with a _battery_?” Sousa snapped, and yeah, that was real anger there, pure righteous Daniel Sousa rage. Jack was going to miss that, even considering how often he’d ended up on the receiving end of it.

“I didn’t—I didn’t ask, it wasn’t any of my business, he wanted it and he had the money, cash in hand,” Sawyer babbled. He glanced down at the picture, flinched again, and looked away. “Can you put that away, please? I can’t—I don’t want to look at that anymore.”

“Fine.” Sousa swept the photo off the table and stuffed it back into the file under his arm. “Where can we find Dellarosa?”

“I don’t know.” Sawyer glanced at Jack, expression pleading.

Jack grinned at him, all teeth, and started to stand. “Wrong answer.”

“Okay, he has a warehouse over on San Pedro,” Sawyer said quickly. “Only it’s through like a friend of a friend, you know? His name isn’t on the lease, but I know he keeps offices there. Leaseholder is a girlfriend or something. Isabella Costa. I heard he was holed up there.”

Sousa shoved the door open and crutched out of the room without another word. Jack pushed out his chair and stood up.

“Thanks a lot,” he said. “You’ve been a big help.”

Sousa was waiting for him out in the hallway, and they fell into step together easily, Jack automatically shortening his stride to account for Sousa’s slower pace. “You really think the D.A. will make a deal?”

“Probably,” Sousa said, shrugging one shoulder. “Sawyer’s a rat, but his father still has influence. Either way, it’s not really my problem now.”

“True.”

“So, are you going to tell me what you’re really doing here?” Sousa asked, still in the same mild, casual tone.

“I told you, I have—”

“—business. Right.”

“I do,” Jack said, affronted.

“Right,” Sousa said again, and then they were walking into the bustle and noise of the bullpen, and he let it drop to go corral some intern into digging up the files on Isabella Costa. Carter was at her desk with a phone tucked against her ear, the demolished remains of lunch sitting atop a precarious stack of papers, but she smiled at them as they passed, cupped a hand over the mouthpiece.

“I had Simmons stop by the delicatessen. There’s sandwiches enough for two in your office.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Sousa said fervently, grinning down at her, and Carter dimpled up at him, and for an instant it was like the two of them were in their own little world together, away from the cigarette and shoe-leather stink of the bullpen.

So, yeah. That seemed to be going well. Good for them.

He wished it was late enough in the day that he could justify pouring himself a drink.


	2. Chapter 2

Sousa and Carter had the team in place and prepped twenty minutes before the warrants came through. He kind of got the idea, from some of the suspicious looks they’d both cast his way, that they were expecting him to step in and take over, but he didn’t even try it. These were Sousa’s guys, they respected him, and agency chief or not, they wouldn’t take kindly to Jack horning in where he wasn’t needed.

That, and he wouldn’t put it completely past Carter to deck him if he tried.

“We’ve got three buildings to cover,” Sousa said, tapping the blueprints. He had his jacket off and a flak vest on over his loud Hawaiian shirt. The others were similarly attired; Jack had stripped out of his own sports jacket and accepted a vest from a quiet young man with a scarred face, the weight of it almost alien on his shoulders. The last few months had been a lot of paperwork and closed-door meetings with unhappy politicians; before that, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed. It had been a while—a long while, now that he thought about it—since he’d seen any real action.

Sousa, on the other hand, seemed to be in his element. “Fuchida and Simmons, you take the south building; Owens and Gutierrez are on the north. Carter’s with me. I want to do this quietly if we can; Dellarosa shouldn’t have any idea we’re onto him, but there’s no telling what else he’s got stowed in there.”

“Our primary objective is to secure the solar device,” Carter added. She was braiding her hair back into a neat plait, which she tied off and flipped over her shoulder as she spoke. “Please keep that in mind. We want Dellarosa, too, but he’s secondary.”

“Right. Any questions?” Sousa paused, looking around the room. When no one spoke, he nodded sharply. “All right. Let’s move.”

“You’re with us,” Carter added to Jack, in an undertone. “If that’s acceptable to you, that is.”

He gave her a look. “If that’s acceptable to me?”

She smiled, dimple denting the smooth curve of her cheek, and leaned across him to reach for her gun holster. For a moment, his nose was full of the smell of her perfume. He squeezed his eyes shut until she moved away, and opened them to see Sousa watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

Jack wondered for a wild instant if he was about to say—something—but then Sousa shook his head sharply and the moment passed unremarked. “You coming, Jack?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, and reached for his own gun. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The warehouse district was quiet, the noise of the city a long way off. Hulking, faceless buildings loomed over narrow streets, and Jack could smell salt in the hot breeze as he climbed out of the car. They’d parked in a side street a block or so from Dellarosa’s warehouse and cut the engines, and agents were climbing out of vehicles and arming themselves quietly and efficiently. Sousa wasn’t taking any chances. After seeing what that toy of Dellarosa’s could do, Jack was just as glad of that.

“Here,” Sousa said, coming up beside him. He was holding out what looked like a chain-mail sack— the container the lab guys had rigged up, presumably. There was an identical one slung over his own shoulder.

“Thanks a lot,” Jack muttered, and took it. It was heavier than it looked; even empty, it probably weighed a good thirty pounds. At least someone had thought to add a long strap that could be slung over his shoulder. He did so, and it bumped against his hip like a lady’s handbag, if those came in reinforced titanium alloy. Probably exactly the sort of thing Carter would use for storing her lipstick and weaponry.

Sousa grinned at him, sharp and amused, and clapped him on the shoulder, his grip warm through the thin cotton of Jack’s shirt. It seemed that the heat of his hand lingered even after he’d let go. Jack watched him cross over to the front of the car to speak briefly to Carter, voice pitched too low to hear, heads bent together, then realized that he was staring and jerked his gaze away.

 _Get your head in the game, Thompson_ , he told himself sternly. Pining over Carter was bad enough. He hadn’t expected it to catch at him that way still, after three months on the other side of the country, although maybe he should have. Pining over _Daniel Sousa_ , though…

Well, getting punched in the face would be the least of his worries. And there were more urgent concerns at the moment—like, for example, the guy who was currently trying to burn down Sunset Strip one cocktail lounge at a time.

_Focus._

There were no guards to be seen at Dellarosa’s building, which struck Jack as ominous, and he could read the same thoughts in the furrow between Sousa’s brows and the tenseness of Carter’s mouth. Dellarosa was neither stupid nor careless. Either they were in the wrong place, or they were walking into a trap.

There was nothing else for it, though.

The door was weathered-looking steel, windowless and secured with a padlock. Carter had brought bolt cutters, and after carefully inspecting the door seal, she cut the lock and pushed the door open into darkness. Pallets towered overhead, and the air smelled of dust and motor oil and something else—a sweet, rotting odor that turned his stomach. Like roadkill in the summer heat. Or like Okinawa in June, the corpses piled three and four deep—

“Clear?” Sousa whispered, sounding concerned, and Jack pressed his lips together and nodded, abruptly disgusted with himself. There were no guards on this side of the door, either. Nothing looked amiss. Probably just a couple of dead rats that nobody had got around to throwing outside. It wasn’t likely Dellarosa was keeping rotting corpses in his hideout, for chrissake.

“Looks clear,” Carter added in an undertone, ducking her head in to glance around. Sousa nodded and waved them in.

Jack let the other two go first, then pushed the door shut again, throwing them into a twilight gloom. There were narrow, dusty windows set high in the walls, which let in just enough sunlight to see by and no more. Their footsteps were quiet on the concrete floor; Sousa had muffled the tip of his crutch with some kind of padding, but he moved quickly enough. Carter was in the lead, shotgun slung over her shoulder. The smell of rot was still thick in his nostrils.

“It smells like a charnel house in here,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose.

So at least he wasn’t hallucinating it. That was something.

They’d gone just far enough into the dark labyrinth of pallets that the door was out of sight behind them when she stopped so abruptly that Jack almost ran into her. Sousa’s crutch skittered against the floor for a moment before he he recovered himself.

“What is it?”

“Hush,” Carter hissed, holding up a hand. Jack held his breath, straining his ears, but there was nothing. After a long moment, Carter sighed. “I thought I heard something. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sousa murmured, and they continued on. There was an unpleasant prickling prickling sensation at the back of Jack’s neck. It felt, for no reason he could put a finger on, like they were being watched. The warehouse around them was as silent as a tomb, and smelled about as bad as one.

“There’s a staircase on the far end, according to the blueprints,” Carter said as they approached a broad corridor, where a forklift squatted like some quiescent primordial beast, enveloped in shadows. “I believe it leads up to a set of offices, that seems a likely—oh, _bloody_ hell!”

This last was delivered in a hissed whisper, and an instant later Jack could see why.

The hadn’t been able to turn up hide nor hair of Isabella Costa, a mafia princess who was the sole heir to a rapidly expanding shipping business and, if rumors were to be believed, Giovanni Dellarosa’s most recent lover. She had missed two lunch appointments and a shareholder meeting in the past week; Sousa had speculated that she’d gone into hiding along with Dellarosa when the SSR started getting uncomfortably close.

She was lying crushed half-under the treads of the forklift, mouth open, an expression of shock frozen on her mottled face. Flies buzzed around her sightless eyes.

Sousa made a choked-off noise in the back of his throat and turned his face into his shoulder. The smell of death was thick enough to choke on.

After a shocked moment, Carter stepped forward. “There’s something in her hand.”

“Peggy—” Sousa began.

“Look.” She knelt beside the dead woman and began prying her clenched fingers open with no sign of revulsion. “I think it’s a controller of some sort.”

She finally managed to get it free, and stood, tossing it to Jack. The device was oblong, smooth matte gray with long, deep grooves cut into the edges and a dial at one end. There were no wires, no obvious power source.

“So,” Sousa said, peering at it. “If that’s the controller, where’s the weapon?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

“I got another question,” Jack said, gesturing at the dead woman. “What the hell happened to her? I thought they were supposed to be partners.”

“It looks as though that particular partnership has run its course,” Carter said. “What concerns me is that he just left her here, apparently for days. That’s… well, it’s not the behavior of a man in a rational frame of mind.”

“You have a gift for understatement, Marge.”

“Either way, there’s no sign of him here right now,” Sousa murmured. “I want to get that device contained. Jack, if you can check the upstairs offices, we’ll split up and search the warehouse.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Carter asked. “If it’s a trap…”

“No,” Sousa said unhappily. “But if he is here, and he’s got that device, I’d rather find it sooner than later. Last thing we need is to get trapped inside if he sets it off. We’re not exactly facing an army, here; the important thing is speed.”

Carter opened her mouth, then shut it and nodded. “Very well. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. And do be careful.”

Sousa saluted, only a little sarcastically, and started off down the left corridor, gun at the ready. Carter looked after him for a long moment, then glanced at the dead woman at her feet, and sighed.

“He’ll be fine,” Jack felt compelled to say.

“Of course he will,” Carter said. “You be careful as well, though. And radio if you get in over your head.”

“Yes, mother,” Jack said, and grinned when she rolled her eyes. He skirted Isabella Costa’s body, looking away from her agonized face and staring eyes, and headed for the stairs without looking back. He could hear the soft noise of Carter and Sousa’s footsteps fading into the muffled silence around them.

There was a gated-in landing that jutted over the main warehouse, and a door leading to what had to be a set of offices, the shades tightly drawn. It was lighter up there, closer to the windows, and the dark maze of pallets stretched out beneath him. He could see the gruesome tableau of Isabella Costa’s mangled body almost directly below, but there was no sign of either Carter or Sousa.

He tried the door, and found it open. The hallway beyond was gloomy, but a thin line of yellow of light showed under the door at the end of the hall.

The first door he tried led to a small, dark, untidy office. A half-finished invoice was still in the typewriter, and the phone cord had been yanked out of the wall. There were bloody fingerprints and scorch marks on the desk. A small coat closet held nothing but a broken umbrella and a lady’s fur stole, probably belonging to the late Miss Costa. Both had smears of soot and blood on them.

“Great,” Jack muttered. The device in his hand had started to vibrate, the dial on it spinning lazily. Probably not a good sign.

There was a clatter at the end of the hallway, and he could feel his head jerk up. As silently as he could, he slipped out of the room and crept down the hallway toward that last door.

Dellarosa had his back to the door when he pushed it open. He was bent over a desk, muttering frantically to himself and stuffing papers into a briefcase. Crisp banknotes littered the floor like fallen leaves, and there was a shiny, ominous-looking piece of machinery squatting in the corner. It was much, _much_ bigger than the designs they had; there was no way it would fit in the sack Jack was carrying. The controller in his left hand began emitting a high, piercing whine.

“SSR,” he snapped. “Show me your hands _right now._ ”

Dellarosa froze, then turned slowly to face him.

He was a big man, burly as a prizefighter in his good suit, which had probably been worth a pretty penny before someone tried to set it on fire. The left side of his face was swollen and mottled, as though someone had taken a baseball bat to it, and both his hands were bandaged. His eyes were wild.

“You got it all wrong,” he said.

“Yeah? From here, it looks pretty clear to me.” He slid the device into his pocket and reached for his radio without taking his eyes or his gun off of Dellarosa. “Sousa, I got him. He’s up in the offices.”

 _“We’re on our way,”_ Sousa said immediately.

“No no no,” Dellarosa said, reaching for the gun Jack could see sitting on the edge of the desk.

“Hands in the air!”

“You gotta believe me, this is bigger than you know.”

“Tell you what,” Jack said. “How about you come on back to the station and tell us all about it?”

Dellarosa looked at him, then at the device in the corner.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

A sudden calmness settled on him, and Jack understood what he was about to do an instant before he did it.

He squeezed the trigger as Dellarosa lunged, heard a scream—but it was too late. The big man caught the machine in both hands, twisted something, and the room exploded into flames.

Jack scrambled through the sudden, blistering heat to where Dellarosa lay. The mobster was still breathing, blood bubbling between his lips. Jack grabbed him by both shoulders, gave him a bone-rattling shake. “How do we shut it off?”

“You can’t,” Dellarosa murmured. His eyes were clouded and distant, like he was already looking into the world beyond. “It’s too late. It’ll all burn… Isabella, I’m sor—”

His eyes rolled back in his head, and his breath rattled in his chest. He did not take another.

“Damn it,” Jack muttered, fingers skittering over the surface of the device. He touched a dial, then yelped involuntarily. It was like touching a hot stove. Flames danced along the ceiling; an expanding ring of fire spread across the ugly carpet. The heat was stifling.

 _“_ — _in, Jack, what the hell was that?”_

Sousa’s voice on the radio, sounding like he was on the verge of panic.

“I found the thing,” Jack said shortly into his radio. “Dellarosa set it off. You guys should get out of here.”

There was a chorus of denials in his radio— it sounded like Carter, as well— and Jack ignored it. The last thing they needed was for the building to collapse on their heads, and that was assuming that any of them could get out. Nobody had escaped any of the other fires, which suggested, ominously, that whatever containment field kept the fire in kept people in as well.

In which case they were all fucked anyway and he might as well stay and try to turn it off. He tugged his shirt up until it covered his mouth and nose—the smoke was already thick enough to make his eyes burn—and bent over the device.

It was glowing a worrying shade of red and there were about fifteen different dials on the face of it, none of which were labeled, of course. He peered down at the controller, which was still vibrating in his hands. Spinning the dial on that seemed to make no difference.

Dellarosa had been able to contain the fires. That meant there had to be a way to shut it off.

There was a shallow port on the bottom of the device. Jack knelt to inspect it. Narrow blades of metal protruded from the sides: they looked, at closer glance, like a bizarre kind of battery contact. It was just about the right size for the controller to fit; he tried it, and it slid neatly into place.

This time, when he tried the dial, something did happen. There was a booming _crack_ , and a percussive burst of air dispersed the smoke for a moment. Jack took a deep breath, only then realizing that his lungs were burning.

The fire was still burning, tongues of flame licking up the venetian blinds and blackening the wallpaper. But something was different: muffled, almost. The device was no longer glowing.

“I think that did it,” he said out loud. His voice was a thin rasp, and when he tried to stand, his head was spinning. Smoke inhalation. He was still in a damn burning building, after all: now that it seemed like the apocalypse was no longer imminent, it was a job for the firefighters.

He put out a hand to steady himself, and burning wallpaper came away in his fingers. Definitely time to go.

Jack made it to the door before he had an inkling that something had gone even more wrong. The air seemed… thicker there somehow, until moving was like wading through mud. He could still see just fine: the undamaged hallway, the far office and the landing that jutted out over the warehouse, all of it completely untouched by fire. It looked like so far at least, the blaze was contained in Dellarosa’s office. Which was good, but he just… he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t _move._

A horrible premonition wound its way down into his gut. He looked up, and saw smoke curling against an invisible plane, as though a glass wall had settled in between the burning hallway and the rest of the building.

The fire was contained.

The fire was contained, and so was he.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack tried to push his hands against the barrier, and swore. It wasn’t even like hitting a wall, it was like trying to drive his hands into wet concrete, a resistance that increased until he just stopped. It seemed to span the entire breadth of the hallway, from ceiling to floor. Bizarrely, he could actually see the point at which the flames cut off, where the wallpaper was smoke-stained and beginning to blister with heat on one side of the barrier, and on the other side, inches away, completely untouched.

Well, now he knew why none of the surrounding buildings in the other fires had been damaged, anyway. Bully for him. That would be a real comfort for Sousa and Carter when they hauled his charred corpse out of here. Maybe Sousa would be getting that promotion sooner rather than later, that might ease the sting a little.

As if the thought had summoned them, he saw two dark heads emerge from the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. Sousa first, then Carter, flipping her braid over her shoulder and holstering her gun.

_You were supposed to get the hell out of here,_ Jack thought, but really, it was Carter and Sousa. When had either of them ever showed a lick of common sense?

Carter had spotted him. She grabbed Sousa by the elbow and pulled him forward, and her mouth was moving… and that was when he realized the other weird thing about this whole weird, terrifying situation. He couldn’t hear what she was saying. She was twenty feet away, if that, and he couldn’t hear a thing.

Force fields, he thought disgustedly. Go figure.

“I can’t hear you,” he said out loud, as Carter and Sousa approached, just in case it only went one way. The smoke was rolling in, thick enough to choke him… and that was another fun thought. If the barrier prevented smoke from leaving, that meant that he had a rapidly diminishing supply of air. Just in case he didn’t have enough to worry about. The heat was already blistering.

Carter shook her head and cupped a hand over her ear. Apparently it did go both ways. Wonderful. He was going to have to orchestrate his rescue using pantomime.

And when he got out of here, the three of them were having a conversation about agents who took dumb risks in direct violation of their boss’s orders. _After_ rescued him.

* * *

Daniel’s first thought was that Jack was fine, and with it came a startling rush of relief. He was standing at the entrance to Dellarosa’s office, and the room behind him was still burning, but the fire hadn’t spread. The fire trucks were already on their way; they should be able to get it contained, assuming Jack had gotten the device shut down, which it looked like he had. Everything was going to be fine.

“Something’s wrong,” Peggy said suddenly in a low, tense voice, and as they approached he realized that she was right. Jack wasn’t moving, and his face, framed by swirling smoke, was white and scared.

His lips were moving, but Daniel couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“There’s some sort of force field,” Peggy said. “Look.”

Daniel peered at it, and realize that she was right. Something was preventing the smoke from escaping into the hallway; he could barely even smell it. That same something seemed to have Jack trapped. He reached out, tried to touch it, and found his hand halted with an immoveable, invisible wall. There wasn’t even anything solid to touch; his hand just stopped.

Behind the barrier, Jack was still trying to talk. Daniel shook his head, reached for his radio, and held it up.

It took a moment for Jack to get it— he really must have been panicked— but then he nodded and reached for his own radio. _“I hope you got some idea for getting me out of this, Sousa.”_

“Working on it,” Daniel said, glancing at Peggy. She gave him a nod and stepped away, switching channels; he could hear her asking terse questions of the scientists on the other end of the line.

_“Well, you want to work on it a little bit faster? It’s getting toasty back here.”_

“How the hell did this happen, anyway?”

_“I don’t know,”_ Jack snapped, sounding frustrated. He spun, shoving his hands into his hair; his fingers were blistered. He didn’t even seem to notice. _“I’m pretty sure I shut the thing down, but the fire’s still spreading in here and it’s getting…_ ” His voice faded for a moment, his face still turned away. _“The air’s not so good.”_

Of course. It wasn’t just the fire— with a force field preventing the smoke from leaving, the air would be unbreathable in short order. Jack had perhaps five minutes— maybe less— before he suffocated. And they had front-row seats to watch it.

“Jack,” Peggy said, reappearing and plucking the radio out of Daniel’s fingers. “Have you tried undoing whatever you did to the device?”

_“Won’t that just get the fire going again?”_

“We can worry about that _later_ ,” Daniel snapped. “First order of business is getting you out of there.”

Jack glanced up at him, and there was an odd flicker of a grin on his face. _“Aw, Sousa, I didn’t know you cared.”_

“Yes, you did,” Daniel said. There was something strange and tight in the back of his throat. “Go see if you can turn that thing off.”

For a moment, Jack looked like he was going to argue, then he saluted briefly, turned, and walked back into the smoke. Daniel could just see the shape of him kneeling beside the machine. There was a brief, convulsive shudder, as if he was coughing; without the radio on, he couldn’t hear a thing. It lent a nightmarish movie-screen feel to the whole thing.

Beside him, Peggy slipped her free hand into his and squeezed it tightly.

_“This thing isn’t really…”_ Jack said raspily, and then there was a grunt, the clatter of metal over the line. _“There. Did that do anything?”_

Daniel put his hand out, testing, but that strange, transparent resistance was still there. “No. Try something else.”

_“Thanks, Sousa, you’re an inspiration.”_ He was silent for a moment, and then his shadowed form shifted, like he’d leaned over to look at something. _“Huh.”_

“What?” Peggy asked sharply, before Daniel could speak.

_“Hang on a second.”_

“Okay,” Daniel said, pressing on the barrier. He prodded it sharply with his crutch, and glanced at Peggy. “Do you think shooting it would help?”

She looked up at him. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

“At this point, I’m willing to try almost anything.”

“True,” Peggy said. Her mouth was a hard, anxious line. “If Jack doesn’t—”

The radio crackled to life. _“You guys still there?”_

“We’re here,” Peggy said immediately. “Have you found something?”

_“Maybe. You talked to the lab rats, right? Did they have anything to say about how this barrier might be working?”_

“Just speculation,” Peggy said, and Daniel was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining the disgusted note in her voice. “Not much that was useful. Why?”

_“I think it might be a dome, instead of a sphere. Smoke’s moving toward the window, and I can feel a breeze.”_

Daniel glanced down at the floor. “I don’t see anything coming out here. Are you sure?” Silence. “Jack?”

The silence stretched out long enough for his heart to catch in his throat, and then Jack said, _“It’s definitely not a sphere. I just dropped a desk drawer out the window. Looks like the dome stops a couple of feet outside the wall. I think I could fit through.”_

He started coughing again, the sound cut off abruptly as the transmission ended. Daniel glanced at Peggy. “That’s a three-storey drop, at least.”

“He may not have a choice,” she said, and drew her gun.

“What are you doing?”

“Shooting it. It’s worth a try.” She thumbed the radio on. “Jack, please stay well away from the door. We’re going to try something.”

She waited for Jack’s affirmative, took aim, and fired.

There was a sound like a giant rubber band _twanging_ , a ripple in the air in front of them, and the bullet ricocheted off at an angle, demolishing a hanging light in a spray of glass and sparks. Daniel rubbed at his ringing ears, but Peggy marched forward to press on the barrier. It was still present. She pushed harder, then slammed her shoulder into it, stepped back, and tried again. Nothing. She was stepping back for another try, breathless, her hair coming loose from her braid to straggle down her face, when Daniel stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Peggy, it’s not going to work.”

She blinked at him like she was coming out of a fugue state, then holstered her gun. “Yes, of course. You’re right.” She lifted the radio again. “Jack, I’m afraid the window may be our only option. Can you find anything to break your fall?”

An ominous silence, and then Jack wheezed, _“Yeah, it’s a regular mattress factory in here.”_

“There were some tarps down in the warehouse,” Daniel said. “If we pulled one out—”

“Like a safety net,” Peggy finished, nodding. “Jack, hang on.”

_“Not going anywhere,”_ came the raspy reply, and then they were moving back down the hallway, down the stairs, as fast as Daniel’s gimp leg would go.

* * *

Jack pressed his face to the window, sucking in precious breaths of cool air. The smoke was so thick that he couldn’t even see Dellarosa’s body where it lay, a few feet from him, the heat searing. His eyes and lungs were burning, and his brain felt thick and cottony, his thoughts pulling apart like soft taffy.

_“_ — _in. Jack, come in, can you hear me?”_

Daniel. That was Daniel, and he sounded close to panic. Jack blinked slowly at the radio, but it still took him several long moments to pull his thoughts together and push the button. His voice, when he spoke, sounded like it had been scraped raw. “Hear you.”

_“Oh, thank God,”_ Daniel said, all in a rush. _“Jack, we have a tarp stretched out. If you’re gonna go out the window, you have to go now.”_

_“Aim for the tarp, if you can,”_ Peggy added.

Good advice. He wanted to make a sarcastic retort, but he couldn’t quite pull the words together. “Kay,” he muttered instead, and reached for the windowsill.

It took three tries to pull himself up to his feet, and when he did his heart was pounding, black spots crowding the edges of his vision; for a terrifying moment, he was sure he was about to pass out entirely.

The window was a casement-style one that opened out; he’d already propped it open, and he thought that the opening was probably wide enough for him to slither through without trying to knock the thing off of its hinges. The trick was doing it without losing his grip, especially since his muscles seemed disinclined to obey him. He heaved himself up, scraping his belly along the frame, and swung his feet out into the open air, letting himself down until he was hanging from the metal frame by his fingers, chest bumping against the rough stucco wall. A blast of cool, sweet-smelling wind hit him in the face, ruffling his hair and chasing some of the fog from his thoughts, and he looked down.

Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. The sidewalk below looked very far away and very, very hard; Daniel and Peggy were directly beneath him with a broad length of canvas stretched between them, and it looked about the size of a postage stamp from here. This was insane. That was a three-storey drop, and that glorified sheet was going to do next to nothing to prevent him from becoming a dark smear on the pavement below.

This was absolutely fucking insane, and he had no choice. At least this way, death would be quick. His other option was staying up here to choke to death on smoke.

_Desperate measures for desperate times_ , he thought, took a deep breath— and let himself fall.

* * *

He must have blacked out on impact. The next thing he remembered was being lowered gently to the ground, Daniel’s face looming over him, limned in golden sunlight and horribly anxious. His lips were moving, but Jack couldn’t make sense of the words. He could still smell smoke, and everything hurt in a diffuse, distant kind of way.

He reached up, clumsily, and patted Daniel’s face. It was just supposed to be a quick touch, a reassurance, but Daniel’s skin was warm and his jaw was rough, and he was so wonderfully _there_ that Jack was curling weak fingers around the back of his neck and tugging him down before he even thought about it.

Daniel could have broken away if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He leaned down, wide-eyed, like he thought Jack was trying to tell him something.

And he _was_ , was the thing, there was so much he wished he could say, but his head felt thick and stupid and the words wouldn’t come. So he kissed Daniel instead.

It wasn’t much of a kiss: a brief, dry press of lips and the huff of Daniel’s startled breath, the taste of smoke still in his mouth, and then Jack let his head fall back on the cold pavement. His skin felt hot and stretched tight, and there was something… wrong… with his chest. _There,_ he thought distantly, and closed his eyes.

“No,” he heard Daniel say, and then there were hands on his face, Daniel’s hands. Peggy’s voice was barking out orders somewhere in the distance, but all he could see was Daniel. “No. Thompson, _Jack,_ you son of a bitch, don’t you dare—”

_Sorry_ , he mumbled, or maybe he just thought it. Daniel was shouting, calling out to someone, and there were other voices, sirens in the distance and the sound of feet running, and then nothing at all.


	4. Chapter 4

He woke briefly to chaos, the sound of sirens and frantic motion. A small, strong hand was squeezing his hard enough to hurt—Peggy, he thought. Daniel’s voice was in the background, edged with worry, and then someone who was neither Peggy nor Daniel shone a light in his eyes.

“Chief Thompson, can you hear me? I need you to—”

He took a breath, opened his mouth—and then the itching discomfort in the back of his throat coalesced into a coughing fit that wouldn’t stop, that went on and on and _on_ , and awoke a new, splintering agony in his chest.

 _Broken ribs,_ he thought vaguely, _great_ , and then darkness was crowding the edges of his vision again, and he couldn’t _breathe_ , he couldn’t stop coughing long enough to suck air back into his lungs. There were more hands on him, pulling at him, and he couldn’t hear Peggy or Daniel anymore—

Darkness swept in on him, and for a time he knew nothing more.

* * *

The next time he woke, it was in a hospital bed. It was quiet, though he could hear voices and footsteps outside the door. For a while, he just stared at the white plaster ceiling, the light coming in sunset shades of red and gold, and then, with an effort, he managed to roll his head over to the side.

Daniel was sitting in the single chair beneath the window, hair tousled, smudges of soot on his face and on the sleeves of his garish Hawaiian shirt, reading from a thick file on his lap. His crutch was leaned up against the wall, and he looked tired and serious.

Jack watched him for a long moment, and then he must have made a noise, because Daniel rubbed his nose and then looked up at him, blinking.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re awake.”

“If that's the word you wanna use, sure.” It came out raspy and mangled beyond all recognition. His chest felt like someone had ripped it open and loaded it full of hot coals, and something shifted in a way it definitely wasn’t supposed to. “Ow.”

“Yeah, try not to move,” Daniel said, sitting up and reaching for his crutch. “I’ll get you some water.”

Jack had questions, but his throat felt like he’d swallowed a mouthful of nettles, and another coughing fit with what had to be busted ribs was a hellish experience he’d rather avoid. He watched Daniel pour a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand, reached for it, and only then realized that his hands were bandaged. When he flexed his fingers, they felt stiff and sore.

“Probably easier if I hold it for you,” Daniel said, and waited for Jack’s jerky nod before he held the glass to his lips. His free hand curved around the back of his neck to brace his head. He didn’t seem to have a problem touching Jack, which could mean that the stupid thing he thought he remembered doing hadn’t actually happened, or it could mean… he didn’t know. Nothing, probably. Daniel was a professional. “Here. Take it slow; trust me, you really don’t want to be puking right now.”

Even with the warning, he couldn’t help gulping at the cool water the moment it hit his lips. Daniel pulled the glass away before he’d had even close to enough. Jack wanted to protest, but the water was hitting his stomach like a fist, and he really didn’t need to compound his current state of indignity by throwing up all over himself. He dry swallowed against the sudden nausea, and when he was sure he wasn’t going to be sick, said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Daniel hesitated fractionally, then said, “They were able to get the fire contained. Snaked a hose up through the window; the containment field collapses once the fire is out, apparently. The lab boys seem to think they’ve figured out a way to contain that device, but we’re keeping it off-site just in case.”

“Yeah,” Jack said raspily. “Burning down the L.A. office of the SSR wouldn’t look so good on the annual review.”

Daniel pressed his lips together. “Yeah, about that.”

He glanced at the file he’d set down on the night stand, and Jack’s heart sank. “What?”

“So, I got a visit from a Senator Girard today when I got back to the office. Ring a bell?”

Jack made a face. Busted. “Yeah.”

“He had all kinds of questions about our operations, cost, so on… said there was another audit coming on. He told me I should ask you about it if I had any questions.”

Damn it. “He’s on the Appropriations Committee.”

“I got that much.” Daniel’s gaze was piercing. “What else?”

“Nothing else,” Jack said, which was more or less the truth. Most of the truth. “The bigwigs in Washington aren’t too happy with the SSR right now, you might have noticed. I’ve worked with Girard before, figured I had a better chance of making the case to him personally before I went up in front of Congress. Didn’t figure he’d come nosing around the offices, or I woulda said something.”

Daniel looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

A flicker of a smile. “Yeah, okay. I believe you.”

“...Thanks,” Jack said, cautiously.

“You’re welcome.” Daniel was silent for a long moment. “How much do you remember of what happened back there?”

“Uh, force field, fire, I jumped out a window… you were there, Sousa.”

“Yeah. I was there.” Daniel coughed. “After you got out, I mean. I don’t know if you remember…”

So they were talking about it. Okay, then. “I remember planting one on you. Sorry about that.”

Daniel let out an odd little laugh, didn’t meet his eyes. The tips of his ears were red. “It's okay. You were out of your head, I figure you got me confused with a dance hall girl.”

And that was a graceful out if Jack had ever seen one, but he was thinking about the panic he knew he’d seen on Daniel’s face, and how he really could have died—it wouldn't have been the first time—and some previously unsuspected scrap of courage or stupidity or both made him blurt, “Nah. I knew who you were.”

Daniel looked up at that, something soft and startled in his face. “You did?”

“Course I did, you think I just go around kissing anybody who rescues me from a burning building?” Daniel stared at him for a long moment. Long enough for the impulse to spill his guts to abate, for the specter of consequences to rear its ugly head. Jack wiped a hand over his mouth like he could rub the words out of existence. “You know what, never mind. You’re right, I was outta my head. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Daniel licked his lips. For a moment, it looked like he was about to say something, but then he shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go find the doctor.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “That’d be great, thanks.”

Daniel was already out the door before he could finish speaking. The door swung shut behind him, and Jack slumped back on the pillows. _Fuck._

* * *

The doctor used a lot of words like “thoracic trauma” and “respiratory inflammation”, and what it mostly seemed to work out to was that he was damn lucky that he hadn’t suffocated or smashed himself like a bug on the pavement, and that such trivial matters as sitting up and walking and breathing were going to be unpleasant as hell for the foreseeable future.

Daniel didn’t come back in, and neither did Peggy; his only visitor was the nurse with the morphine shot. Which was fine. They both had to be busy, and it did him no good for them to hang around the hospital room and watch him doze.

It was _fine_.

The sunset light faded slowly to darkness, and at some point he drifted from a morphine haze into genuine sleep.

* * *

The next day, he discovered that someone had brought his suitcase over from the hotel while he slept. They brought him his discharge papers to sign around noon, and he was weighing the indignity of asking a nurse to help him get dressed against the unpleasantness of trying to do it himself when Peggy swept into the room. She was neatly dressed and perfectly coiffed, but there was a manic, over-caffeinated edge to her that made him wonder if she’d actually slept at all the night before. “So, you’ll be staying with Daniel, of course,” she said, in lieu of a greeting.

Jack blinked at her, like she was a mirage that might dissolve in the golden California sunlight coming in through the window. “What?”

She gave him a look. “They _are_ releasing you today, aren’t they? I suppose you could go back to the hotel, but really, Jack, be sensible. You’ll be better off if there’s someone around to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t suffocate should anything go wrong with your lungs. I’m told that’s a thing that can happen.”

“And what, you and Sousa are volunteering?” he asked. “Don’t you have to work?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“So? Since when has that stopped you?”

“As I said, you’re perfectly welcome to go back to your hotel,” she said tartly, and didn’t answer the question. “I’ll give you a ride myself. Or Howard has generously offered his services—well, the services of Mr. Jarvis, anyway—as a babysitter, and the use of one of his spare rooms, but somehow I suspected that you wouldn’t be interested in _that_.”

Jack could think of few things less appealing than being fussed over by a reluctant and uncomfortable Jarvis, unless it was being fussed over by Jarvis while having to look at what passed for wall art in Howard Stark’s home. He shuddered. “No, thank you.”

“My thoughts exactly. So, shall I take you back to your hotel, or are you going to be reasonable?”

It was pointless to argue with Peggy Carter when she was on a roll; might as well try try to argue with a Pershing tank for all the good it would do him. “Fine. Get out of my room and let me put some clothes on.”

She beamed at him with sudden, dazzling brightness, and glided out of the room. Jack sighed and bent carefully over his suitcase with the sinking feeling that he’d been neatly outmaneuvered.

Oh, well. If things were too unbearably awkward with Daniel, he could always head back to the hotel later. After that…

He stopped that thought in its tracks. The likely aftermath of this trip was the ruin of his career. He’d known that right from the get-go, no matter how politely Girard tried to edge around the subject. The Appropriations Committee was baying for blood, and there was no realistic way for Jack to get through this with his skin intact.

Sousa would probably end up with the top spot. That was fine; that was good. He sure as hell deserved it more than Jack ever had.

It was fine. Jack had plenty of connections up in Washington, still; he wouldn’t end up out on the street. He just wouldn’t be an SSR agent anymore, and what the hell—he’d only gotten the job in the first place because of Vernon, and look how that had worked out. It was time to move on.

Getting dressed was exactly as slow and painful an operation as he’d feared, but Peggy didn’t comment on how long it had taken when he opened the door. She plucked his suitcase out of his hand without asking, and he let her do it; at this point, dignity was probably a lost cause, and every muscle in his body felt like it had been beaten with hammers. It wasn’t the first time he’d cracked his ribs, but somehow every time he managed to forget just how unpleasant it was.

Damn it, he’d just gotten used to _not_ feeling like an invalid, before this. Not exactly the California trip of his dreams, although why he’d expected anything different from this godforsaken state, he didn’t know.

“Come along, then,” Peggy said briskly, with no visible sign of pity, but when she started off down the hallway, her stride was slow enough for Jack to match easily.

* * *

Daniel’s house was a neat little bungalow on a quiet side-street, the yard slightly unkempt in a way that suggested he didn’t spend much time at home. There were lace curtains in the windows that spoke of a woman’s touch—probably not Peggy’s, all things considered. The erstwhile fiance, maybe. He'd never met her, never even bothered to learn her name. Hadn't thought to ask just what happened between them, although in retrospect it was pretty obvious.

Daniel wasn’t at home, and he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved by that. Peggy got him situated in the tiny guest bedroom on the ground floor, which overlooked a weed-choked back garden, fixed him a sandwich and a cup of tea, and glared at him until he’d finished both. Only then would she let him have a morphine tablet.

“There’s a telephone in the back hallway,” she said, tapping her fingers against the door frame. “Sandwich fixings in the icebox, bread in the pantry just through there…” she gestured vaguely, but it was clear that she was comfortably familiar with the house, even without Daniel here; he’d bet anything that if he happened to snoop in Daniel’s upstairs bedroom, he’d see plenty of evidence that she was living here in all but name. Her official records still listed her residence as the Stark Estate, which was a gas—it wasn’t like living in Howard Stark’s spare room was exactly _better_ for her reputation.

Maybe it was different if it was real.

She was shifting on the balls of her feet, and Jack sighed and waved a hand at her from his spot on the bed. “Go on, go back to work. I’m pretty sure I can manage to feed myself without burning the house down.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind sitting with you for a bit…”

“All I want right now is a nap, Carter,” he said. “Get outta here.”

“Well,” Peggy said. “All right then.”

She looked for a moment like she was about to say something else, then shook her head, bent down—giving him a brief, magnificent view of her cleavage—and kissed him on the cheek. Then she turned and walked away without another word, and by the time he could stop gaping after her, she was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Jack woke, groggily, to darkness. He’d fallen asleep on top of the blankets, but he wasn’t cold; someone had pulled an afghan over him at some point. It looked, in the dim light coming in from the hallway, like something a maiden aunt might have crocheted, and it smelled faintly of rose water and moth balls.

He rubbed a thumb over the scalloped edge, feeling a treacherous flare of warmth in his chest, which he squashed immediately.

The door was slightly ajar, and he could hear quiet conversation from the far end of the house. He slid off the bed, bracing himself gingerly against the mattress with one battered hand, and stood up. As expected, his head spun, but unconsciousness didn’t seem immediately imminent, so he crossed the room—slowly, walking like an old man—to peer at his reflection in the small mirror above the vanity. He looked pasty-pale, and his hair was a wreck. There was still a line of soot along his hairline, his eyes were still bloodshot, and his lips were cracked. He wasn’t gonna win any beauty contests, that was for sure, but at least he wasn’t permanently disfigured. That could easily have happened.

He smoothed his hair back, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the hallway.

The light and conversation were coming from the kitchen, a warm pool of yellow light in the otherwise darkened house. Peggy had her feet up on the table and was sucking jam off of her fingers with all the casual obliviousness of an ill-mannered schoolboy, in stark contrast to her perfectly styled hair and impeccable makeup. The tableau was so very _Peggy_ that Jack had to grin.

“I still think Judge Gorman is our best bet,” she was saying, presumably to Daniel. “Dellarosa had to be bankrolled— I can’t see how he could have built up this kind of network so quickly otherwise. Gorman had both the means and the motivation.”

“Hey, if you got any evidence, I’d be happy to see it,” Daniel said from further inside the kitchen. “But we can’t go after a judge with nothing but a hunch.”

“Well, if it was someone powerful enough to attempt a hit on an SSR chief,” she began, then looked up and saw Jack leaning against the doorframe. “Oh, good, you’re awake again.”

“Wish I wasn’t,” Jack said, without moving. He wasn’t actually completely sure he’d be able to stay standing without the doorframe to hold him up, and he didn’t think his dignity—or his ribs—would survive collapsing in a heap on the floor. “For the record, your hospitality out here leaves something to be desired. Nobody in New York has ever tried to set me on fire.”

“Really, Jack, you mustn’t take these things so personally,” she said, smiling, and swung her feet off the table to stand. “Here. Come sit down.”

Before he’d quite realized what she was doing, she’d tucked herself against him and slid an arm around his back, gently tugging his arm over her shoulders so he could lean against her. He could feel the heat of her, soft curves pressed up against him; too bad he was in too much pain to appreciate it properly.

That, and Daniel was watching him from over by the stove. He was wearing an apron, and there was a smear of flour on his cheek. The sight was incongruously domestic, especially taking into account the gun still strapped to his hip.

Jack licked his lips and looked away. It was a stupid thing he’d done back there, and stupider still to admit to it, but it didn’t have to be the end of the world. Peggy seemed oblivious, at least, which meant Daniel probably hadn’t mentioned it to her. If he thought it was just a one-off, near-death impulse—

He was gonna be back in New York by the end of the week. And after that, well. After that, it looked like he probably wouldn’t have much reason to be talking to Daniel or Peggy at all. Maybe that was why he’d done it.

Maybe he was just an idiot. A dumb, impulsive idiot with a dumb schoolboy crush on not one but _two_ of the most unavailable people he’d ever met.

Peggy deposited him gently in the only chair that had a cushion. “How are you feeling?”

“The honest answer to that ain’t something I can say in front of a lady.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing. “I don’t know if there are any of _those_ present. Speaking of hospitality, would you like some waffles? Daniel is cooking.”

“For dinner?”

“Cut me some slack,” Daniel said from over by the stove. “It was that or take-out, and nobody delivers out here this late.”

“And you live here on _purpose?_ ”

Daniel flashed him a quicksilver grin. “Hey, you were the one who recommended me for the job.”

Jack shrugged, looking back down at the table. It was white enamel with a winding pattern of green vines around the edge. No tablecloth, of course, and the dishes were mismatched, like Daniel had bought them piecemeal at a rummage sale. “Seems to have worked out okay for you.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, looking over at Peggy and smiling. “It has.”

“Glad to hear it,” Jack muttered. “Yeah, okay, I’ll take a waffle.”

It did smell pretty good, what little he could smell of it, and lunch seemed very far away. He wasn’t even sure what time it was. After nine, at least. The sky outside was completely dark, the small, overgrown yard lit only by street lamps. It was far enough out that the lights of the city weren’t really visible, which was mildly disorienting.

Suburbia. He really wouldn’t have thought it of Daniel.

Peggy plopped back into her chair, poured a glass of water, and pushed it toward him without asking. Jack cupped his hands carefully around it; the cool glass was soothing on his blistered palms.

He couldn’t even remember quite how he’d managed to do that—trying to shut off the machine, maybe, or from the burning wallpaper, who the hell knew—but it was going to be hell trying to manage a gun. Or a stack of papers, for that matter, which seemed like a more likely option for the foreseeable future.

“So,” Peggy said. “We think Dellarosa was being bankrolled by a judge.”

“Huh. That makes sense.” Peggy and Daniel exchanged a meaningful look, and Jack glanced between them. “What?”

“I was expecting a little more surprise,” Daniel said, opening the waffle-maker with a hiss of sweet-smelling steam and flipped a slightly-burnt waffle onto the waiting stack.

“He was spouting off about how all this was bigger than we knew. Before he tried to kill me, anyway. I don’t think he was the one who killed your mob princess, by the way, but I’m guessing you already figured that out. He seemed pretty broken up about her.”

“Yes,” Peggy said, with a glance at Daniel. “I suspect that was our friend Judge Gorman.”

Jack looked at her, then at Daniel. “And what do you think?”

Daniel made a face and scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of flour behind. Jack absolutely did not find that adorable. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I mean, he was the one who signed the warrant on Dellarosa.”

“Which,” Peggy interjected, “actually makes him more suspicious, not less, given how that turned out. If he was trying to cover his tracks, trapping the SSR chief in an impenetrable firestorm would be quite effective. And he lost quite a lot of money when Isodyne went under. _And_ he has more than a few shady wartime ties to the Kremlin. Shall I go on?”

“No,” Daniel said dryly. He turned the waffle-maker off and scooped up the plate, crutched back over to the table. “Problem is, he had to have something on Dellarosa to make sure he’d play his part— something big. A guy like that isn’t gonna make a suicide run on some rich man’s say-so. And even if he _is_ our guy, we’re talking about a judge. We can’t go after him without some solid evidence, not if we have any hope of making it stick.”

Peggy opened her mouth again, but Jack beat her to the punch. “You can’t go after him directly, you mean.”

And now both of them were looking at him. Daniel spoke first. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re thinking like a cop, Sousa. Think like a politician instead. What does Gorman stand to lose, besides money?”

This time, Peggy was the one to get it first. “Oh, of course.”

“What?” Daniel asked.

“Politicians respond to public pressure,” Jack said. “Or the threat of public humiliation. They’re egotists.”

“I guess you’d know,” Daniel retorted, but the jibe was mild. “So?”

“So, the way to get Gorman to give you something is to think he’s got something even worse to lose,” Jack said. “He thinks he’s above the law. You can’t haul a judge into the interrogation rooms and knock him around a little—”

“—more’s the pity,” Peggy interjected.

“—so you threaten to go to the press. Which the Council does _not_ currently control, if I’m understanding the situation right. Doesn’t matter what you can prove then, only what sells papers. The bigger the scandal, the better. He’ll sing, trust me. Or, more likely, try to bribe you. Then you’re in the money.” He took a sip of water. His throat felt raw from talking.

“I was going to suggest breaking into his office and nosing around a bit,” Peggy said finally. “But it’s not a bad plan.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “How about one of those waffles? I’m starved.”

Daniel blinked at him for a moment, then shook his head and slid a waffle onto a plate. “Sure, okay.”

He came around the table with the plate before Jack could even think to stand up, and set it down in front of him. He didn’t have to stand so close, and he definitely didn’t have to brace a warm, gentle hand on the flat of Jack’s shoulder as he leaned across to snag the butter dish and a fork. Jack went very still, barely allowing himself to breath, and glanced up in as casual a manner as he could manage.

Daniel met his eyes calmly, hand still on his shoulder, something almost challenging in his face. For a moment, Jack thought about standing up, and—

For chrissake, Peggy was _right there_. What the hell was he thinking?

“Thanks,” he muttered instead, dropping his eyes to his plate. Daniel’s hand tightened on his shoulder briefly, then let go.

“Enjoy,” he said, and then he was moving away, back toward Peggy, and the spot he’d been touching seemed too cold in the balmy evening air.

* * *

“There’s something Jack isn’t telling us,” Peggy said later that night, curled together with Daniel on the bed that was not yet— technically— theirs. It had been weeks since she’d slept anywhere else, and her clothes were tangled up with Daniel’s in the hamper, her toiletries on the counter. It was obvious enough to earn her more than a few scornful looks from Daniel’s neighbors when she came out in her robe to get the mail, but she didn’t especially care. Daniel might have, if he’d noticed it, but she thought he hadn’t.

Jack had certainly figured it out, but he hadn't even batted an eye when Peggy followed Daniel up to bed. And at any rate, he was currently sleeping the sleep of the mildly sedated downstairs, so it wasn't likely he'd overhear them. If he did... 

Daniel rubbed a hand up and down her bare arm. “I know.”

“Other than the…” she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “You know. The other thing.”

His blush was visible even in the lamplit gloom. “You saw that, I guess.”

“I was right there,” she reminded him. “Don’t worry. I doubt anyone else did.”

“Good.” Daniel sighed, curled an arm up behind his head on the pillow; Peggy watched the smooth play of muscle in his bicep with idle appreciation. “I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. Anybody could have seen him. Us.”

“I doubt he thought it through much at all.” She hesitated. “Was it the kiss you objected to, or the timing?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, still blushing. “Peggy, why the hell would you ask me something like that?”

“Because I’d rather like to know. It’s the latter, isn’t it?” He didn’t answer. “Daniel, you wouldn’t be the first man I’ve known who enjoys the company of his own sex as well.” He wouldn’t even be the first man she’d loved, though she didn’t say that out loud. There was so much of Steve’s life that had been stripped bare for the world to gawk at; she’d keep this last little secret for her own. She’d won that particular prize away from James Barnes, and he’d accepted his defeat gracefully enough; it was only now, with him and Steve both gone, that she wished she had found another way.

Perhaps this was her second chance at that. And it wasn’t quite the same: Barnes had never been interested in her. Jack, she thought, was. Attracted, at least. She could see how the three of them might fit together to form something new, if only she could get Daniel on board with it. The two of them together ought not to have much trouble persuading Jack. Whatever else could be said of him, he wasn’t generally the sort of man to act against his own self-interest.

Daniel let out dry breath of laughter. “It’s not—I’ve never exactly—anyway, he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. Probably woulda laid one on Gutierrez if he’d gotten there first.”

“If you really think that, then you’re even more oblivious than I suspected.”

“Really?” He turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “I always figured _you_ were the one he was sweet on. What would make you think that…”

“Call it women’s intuition, if you like. And he did kiss you, not Gutierrez.”

He laughed again, sounding more genuinely amused this time. “So what are you suggesting, anyway?”

“I suspect that if I say we ought to take him to bed with us, you’ll have a conniption,” she said, feeling puckish. “At any rate, I doubt he’s feeling up to it just yet.”

“Jesus, Peggy!”

But he was laughing as he said it—blushing hotly, but laughing. She smiled, and swung a leg over to straddle him, pressing close, feeling the solid heat of him through her thin slip, the undeniable evidence of his interest in the subject at hand.

It didn’t make her feel jealous. Rather the opposite, actually: so that was a useful data point.

She leaned down to brush her lips against his. “I’m simply suggesting,” she said, and kissed him again, sliding her hands into his curly hair, “that we take the next opportunity to gauge his interest in the idea. And we go from there.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Daniel mumbled against her lips, his warm hands sliding up her thighs and under her slip, and then the conversation was abandoned in favor of other pursuits.


	6. Chapter 6

Jack had been rattling around the empty house by himself for a couple of hours the next morning, tired and miserably sore but too wired to sleep like he’d promised both Peggy and Daniel he would, when a knock came at the door.

It was a mark of how his life had been going recently that his first reaction was to reach for his gun. The bone grip dug painfully into his blistered palm as he padded across the living room on bare feet, careful to stay well away from all the windows. He could see the shape of a man’s head and shoulders silhouetted in the sunlight coming in through the curtained window at the top of the door.

Another sharp rap, and a voice. “Anybody home?”

Jack let out a long sigh and put the gun down on the coffee table. He knew that voice, and honestly, gun-wielding gangsters breaking down the door to finish him off in a spray of hot lead would almost be better. At least then his end would be quick.

 _You got your own damn self into this_ , he reminded himself, and went to open the door.

“Jack, my boy,” boomed Tom Girard, looking large as life and twice as stout on Sousa’s modest little porch. “So good to see you. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time?”

“Not at all,” Jack said, and stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind him before he could be asked to invite the Senator in. There were seats outside, at least. “I hope you’re not here for Chief Sousa. He’s at work.”

“On a Sunday? A young man like that needs to learn how to stop and smell the roses. No, no. I heard a rumor you were staying here for a few days, and since I was in this neck of the woods already, I figured I’d drop by.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you,” Jack lied, and indicated a chair. “Have a seat, if you like. You thirsty? I’m not sure what Sousa has lying around here, but I’m sure I can scrounge something up.”

“No need, no need,” Girard said, settling himself comfortably into one of the wicker chairs. “I know we were going to talk at my office, but from the sound of things, you’ve had a rough couple of days. Hope you don’t mind.”

Jack stretched his mouth into what he hoped was a convincing smile. “Not at all. You talked to Sousa?”

“Oh, I imagine he’s busy. Him and Agent… Carter, was it?”

Like he didn’t know. “Yessir.”

“But that’s not really our concern, is it, Jack?”

“No, sir.”

Girard sighed, pulled an engraved cigar case out of his pocket, and popped it open. “Can I tempt you?” he asked, and when Jack shook his head wordlessly, lit his own cigar and tucked the case away. “I like you, Jack, I really do. Your father and I go way back, and I’ve only ever wished you success. I hope you know that.”

“I do know that.” The worst part of it was, it was probably even true. Girard wasn’t a bad man. He was just… a politician. And old family friend or not, Jack had had a bellyfull of politicians lately. Maybe Peggy and Daniel had corrupted him. “I hope that the Appropriations Committee appreciates that everything that the SSR has done has been for the good of our country, and to fight the growing Red threat on our soil.”

“And to fight corruption within Congress, I suppose,” Girard said dryly, on a puff of smoke. Jack winced. “Jack, we’re not glad-handing at a fundraiser. Let’s be frank with each other. Your agency was involved in the disappearance of Calvin Chadwick, of Thomas Gloucester—”

“If you’ve read our reports, sir, you know that the SSR had nothing to do with—”

“—Vernon Masters?”

“That was Whitney Frost’s doing,” Jack said stubbornly. “Sir. And if you read our reports, you’ll know that we were instrumental in effecting her capture.”

“Believe me, son, I’m not going to weep any tears over that corrupt son of a bitch getting what he had coming, but between this, that disaster with Roxxon last year, Howard Stark’s continued involvement… the Committee has very serious concerns about the direction your leadership has been taking this agency. There have been talks of shutting it down entirely.”

“That’s completely unnecessary. The SSR still serves a viable purpose— sir, we _need_ an agency that’s prepared to deal with non-traditional threats against our national security.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Girard said. He held the cigar up and contemplated the thin spiral of smoke rising up to dissipate before it reached the white soffit underside of the porch roof. It was quiet out here this time of day. All the good, law-abiding civilians of Pasadena were probably in church, excepting a pair of SSR agents who’d gone to harass a federal judge at his home in Hollywood Heights. He hoped that Carter and Sousa were having more fun than he was. “Believe me, if I didn’t agree with you on that, I wouldn’t have agreed to this meeting. Even if you are Jim Thompson’s son.”

“I don’t want to make it about that, sir,” Jack said, which was true enough. He’d already traded on his father’s name plenty, and he’d have to do it more if he wanted any kind of career after this. He could already foresee more than a little groveling in his future, and good old Jim Thompson wasn’t a man who’d let that slide just for the benefit of his only son’s battered ego. “But whatever mistakes I’ve made, the SSR is a good agency.”

Girard looked at him shrewdly. “Are you willing to stake your career on that?”

“I am.” Already had, in fact, the minute he’d made a break with the Council and staked his chances on a room full of idealistic do-gooders instead.

“And the careers of all the people who report to you?”

“My agents are good people.”

“Excepting, of course, the ones who are currently in prison.”

“I realize we’ve had a few snags,” Jack said, which was the understatement of the century, “but the SSR has been proactive in cleaning up our ranks. I don’t think it’s fair to tar the entire agency with the same brush just because of a few bad apples.”

“That’s what I told the Committee,” Girard said, taking another thoughtful puff of his cigar. The smell of the smoke was itching at Jack’s abused lungs, but he didn’t say anything. “I said that you were young, and inexperienced, and— let’s be honest— thrust into the role without much in the way of preparation, after your former chief’s untimely demise. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said through gritted teeth. He’d known this was coming. It was the best option out of a whole bunch of bad ones, and if anybody still standing out of the whole sorry mess deserved to take it on the chin, it was him. He still hadn’t been prepared for how much it would sting. “I’d say that’s a fair assessment of the situation.”

“I know you’ve done your best. But frankly, the Committee would feel better with some new blood at the reins. Now, you’re not being _forced_ to step down—”

“But if I don’t turn in my resignation post-haste, they’ll reopen the investigation on the agency as a whole and me in particular,” Jack finished. He knew how the game was played; he’d played it brilliantly himself for years, until it all blew up in his face. “With a new chief, they’ll leave it alone, at least for now. Am I understanding that right?”

“That is the current situation, son,” Girard said, not without sympathy. “Don’t take it so hard. You’re a bright young man from a good family; there are still a lot of doors open for you.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. The back of his throat felt itchy and dry, and he swallowed against it; the last thing he needed now was another coughing fit. “Thanks. I’ll have my secretary type something up when I get back to New York.”

“Good man.” Girard extinguished his cigar, hauled himself ponderously out of his chair, and leaned over to clap Jack on the shoulder. “It was good talking to you, Jack. I’ll look forward to seeing you back in D.C.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said. The itching in his throat was getting worse, but he managed to hang onto his smile while Girard made his way slowly down the porch steps, across the little concrete path to the road, where his beetle-green coupe waited. He hung onto it until the car pulled away from the curb, but the puff of exhaust was what undid him. He took a deep breath, and then the coughing started, dry and hacking and sending splinters of agony through his chest. He tried to stand and couldn’t, collapsing back into the wicker seat like a sack of flour, his knees weak, darkness crowding the edges of his vision. It seemed like his chest was being pressed in by a giant, brutal hand, his lungs unable to expand, his ribs caving inwards…

Just when he thought he was about to pass out right there on the porch, the fit abated. Jack took a long, slow breath through his nose, then let it out. His eyes were streaming, and he wiped at them with a shaking hand. His lungs felt like they’d been rolled in shattered glass.

In short, he was a mess. A sore, sorry, and soon-to-be unemployed mess.

He pushed himself carefully up, and found that he could stand, made his cautious way across the porch to the door. He steadied himself on it for a moment, then pushed it open and let himself back into the darkened house.

His morphine pills were on the nightstand in the spare room, but he headed into the kitchen instead. Daniel had to have some kind of booze around here somewhere. It was barely after ten on a Sunday, but right now he didn’t really give a damn.

* * *

Judge Gorman was either not at home or doing a good impression of it when they came to call. Peggy briefly floated the idea of scaling the trellis over his garden wall, but she wasn’t especially surprised when Daniel shot it down.

“You’re no fun at all,” she told him, and he grinned. It was all she could do— even in broad daylight, in the middle of the after-church suburban crowds— not to kiss it off of his face.

“We’ll swing by later. I got another hunch I want to check out first.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Dellarosa has a sister up in Lincoln Heights. As far as I know, she’s not involved in the family business, and when we talked to her earlier she said she hadn’t seen him in years, but…”

“But she might still know something useful,” Peggy finished.

"Exactly."

* * *

Maria Dellarosa’s house was small and neat, with red geraniums in her window boxes. There was a small girl playing with a very well-loved doll on the closed-in porch, and she looked up at Peggy and Daniel with a flat, wary gaze when they came up the walk.

“Hello,” Peggy said brightly. “Is your mummy at home? We’re with the police, and we’d like to ask her a few questions.”

The girl gave her another long, cool stare, then tucked the doll under her arm and slipped into the house without a word. The door slammed shut behind her. In the echoing silence that remained, she could feel Daniel looking at her. “Oh, don’t even start.”

“You haven’t been around kids that much, have you?” he asked, sounding amused.

“Oh, as if you have?”

“Cousins,” he said, and when she looked over at him, he was grinning. “Grew up piled all on top of each other, and we—”

The door banged open again before he could finish his sentence. Maria Dellarosa had her older brother’s dark good looks, but she seemed a bit battered around the edges, careworn, threads of grey winding through her thick black hair, lines framing her scowling mouth. “I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me and mine.”

“We’re very sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Daniel said politely. “We just have a few questions.”

“I told your agent last week that I don’t know nothing about nothing. Gianni’s dead, anyway—what the hell could you possibly want to ask about now?”

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Peggy said, as gently as she could manage. She could see the little girl peering around her mother’s skirt, eyes wide. One grubby thumb was in her mouth, and the doll was still hanging from her other hand. “But we believe that your brother may have been coerced.”

“Oh, what, you’re just now getting that? Some fine officers you all are,” the woman snapped. “Maybe if you coulda scrounged a handful of brains together earlier, I wouldn’t be burying my brother tomorrow.”

“Ma’am,” Daniel started.

“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me. I got nothing to say to you. Get off my porch.” She made as if to slam the door. Peggy stepped forward quickly and caught it before she could. Maria stared up at her, thunderstruck. “How dare you—”

“Do you want justice for your brother?” Peggy demanded, drawing herself up. “You might have saved him if you’d cooperated with us earlier, but it’s too late for that. Help us now, and we’ll catch the man who’s behind this.”

For a moment, Maria looked as though she might burst with rage, and then, suddenly, she deflated. She let go of the door, and stepped aside. “Fine, then. Come in, if you’re gonna. And close the door behind you. Last thing I need is for someone to see me talking to the cops.”

Peggy exchanged a baffled glance with Daniel, then shrugged her shoulders and followed the woman into the house.

It was bright and clean inside, and smelled faintly, pleasantly of coffee. There were children’s toys scattered across the floor.

“Louisa, go up to your room,” Maria said to the child, who was still clinging to her skirts.

“But, Mama—”

“Do as I say.”

The girl’s lower lip trembled. For a moment, Peggy feared she might burst into tears— she really _didn’t_ know a thing about dealing with crying children, and didn’t particularly want to learn— but then she recovered herself, shot a venomous glare in Peggy and Daniel’s direction, and darted up the stairs. A door slammed at the top of the landing.

“Cute kid,” Daniel said, dubiously.

“You’re not here to talk about my daughter,” Maria said sharply. “Ask your questions, then get out.”

Peggy could feel her eyebrows go up, and she wasn’t the only one, but Daniel didn’t push it. He pulled his notepad out of his pocket and flipped it open. “You said you thought it was a set-up. Can you tell me a little more about that?”

Maria snorted. “Gianni was a rat, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get tangled up in something like this.”

“Seemed to be working out for him,” Daniel said. “At least for a while. At least three of the businesses that burned down were owned by rivals of his.”

“So he used it to further his own interests, sure. Doesn’t mean it was his idea. He was a goddamn lab rat, the stupid pig. They just wanted to make sure it worked first. They didn't give a damn about him, and he never woulda gotten involved if they hadn't threatened...” She shook her head. "I told him it was stupid, getting involved with those people, but he never did listen to me."

“Whose idea was it, then?” Peggy asked.

Maria glared at her, then at Daniel. “See, this is why I didn’t say anything to any of you earlier. I got a child to think of. I have responsibilities. And if I know anything about cops, it’s that you look after your own.”

“You’re saying it was a cop who did this?” Daniel asked, sounding only mildly curious. He was good at this. Better than Peggy was, to be honest, at least when it came to civilians; he had a degree of patience that she’d never quite been able to manage.

Maria’s mouth twisted. “I want protection.”

“You’ll get it,” Peggy promised.

“ _Real_ protection. Not a spot in some safe-house downtown where he’ll… you said you were a national agency. That’s what your agents told me.”

“We are.”

“I want you to get me out of LA. Me and Louisa. And I want it _quiet_.”

“We can do that,” Peggy said, with a glance at Daniel. “If you’re willing to testify.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the woman muttered. “I must be outta my mind.”

“Maria,” Daniel said gently. “Tell us who was behind this. Please.”

“Judge Henry Gorman,” Maria spat, after a long moment. “You want proof, I got the letter he sent to my brother, talking about what a shame it would be if something happened to Louisa. How do you like that? High and mighty judge isn’t above threatening a little girl to get his way. He came by yesterday, did you know that? Just to make sure I knew to keep my mouth shut. So you damn well better get me that protection, or me and Louisa are as good as dead.”

“You said he threatened Louisa,” Daniel said slowly. “Your daughter.”

“Yes.”

“But not you.”

“Gianni and me, we weren’t close. Can’t say it’s likely he’d lift a finger to save my neck, let alone jump on a damn grenade. So to speak.”

“But he would for your daughter.”

Maria pressed her lips together and looked away.

“She isn’t your daughter, is she?” Peggy asked quietly, the light finally dawning. “She’s Giovanni’s.”

“She’s my daugher in every way that counts,” Maria snapped. “Gianni and that hussy of his never had time to care for her. She’s lived with me since she was born. I’ve raised her. I’m the only mother she has; the two of them never gave a damn about her.”

“From where I’m standing,” Daniel said gently, “it looks like the two of them died for her.”

Maria’s lips trembled, and she pressed a hand to them for a moment. “Do we have a deal, then?” she said finally, voice flat. “Because if not, I’ll burn that letter and deny I ever said a word to you.”

“We have a deal,” Daniel said, after a long moment. “Now how about we go get that letter.”

Peggy grimaced. It looked like it was about to be a much longer day than she'd anticipated.

* * *

It took considerably less time than she’d expected to whisk Maria Dellarosa and her niece off into SSR protection; whatever faults the agency might have, it was top-notch when it came to making people disappear… although Peggy suspected, privately, that this competence was generally put to somewhat more nefarious ends. No matter, though. They’d be safe, and—nearly as important—able to testify when the time came.

“I have to stay here for a while,” Daniel said, watching the two discreetly unmarked cars pull away from the curb. “At least get things started on a warrant. And call the director of the FBI. Should be a fun conversation.” He hesitated for a moment, then added. “No need for you to be stuck here, though. If you want to take the car home, I can catch a ride with Agent Fuchida.”

“Yes,” Peggy said slowly. “I suppose I ought to go check on Jack.”

“Yeah.” Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. The tips of his ears were red. “And if you… you know. The thing we talked about last night. I’m in, if he is. If you were serious, I mean.”

“I was perfectly serious,” Peggy said, cupping her hands against his blushing cheeks and kissing him quickly on the lips. She felt as though some warm, heady mix of anticipation and nerves was bubbling up in her like champagne. “I’d never joke about something like this. And I’m quite sure that Jack will be game for it.”

“Okay.” Daniel took a deep breath, then stepped back. “Okay. Well, I’ll just…” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward his office. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

“See you,” Peggy said, and left the bullpen, smiling.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so... this is the end, I guess! Thank you all for sticking with me through this, I hope you enjoy!

The house was dark when she got back, the shades drawn, and she shut the door quietly in case Jack was sleeping, kicked her shoes off and hung her purse on the coat-rack before turning.

“Morning, Marge,” came a voice from farther in the room. She squinted, and what she’d initially taken for a pile of coats resolved itself into Jack, sitting slumped on the end of the sofa with a glass of whiskey in his hand. The bottle was on the coffee table in front of him, along with a gun, and it was much emptier than she remembered it being.

“Jack,” she said, her heart sinking. “What on earth…?”

“So,” Jack said, leaning forward to set the glass down. His hands were perfectly steady. “Good news is, you don’t have to worry about that audit.”

Peggy nodded, and picked her way across the room to sit down on the sofa beside him, close enough to feel his warmth, to smell the whiskey on his breath. “What’s the bad news?”

He snorted and reached for the bottle. Peggy plucked it out of his hand before he could tip more into his glass, and took a long swig. The whiskey burned on its way down and left a pleasant warmth in its wake, but there was still something cold and anxious in the pit of her stomach. The happy nervousness of half an hour ago seemed suddenly very far away. “I think you’ve had quite enough of that.”

Jack shrugged, and picked up his glass again. There was a faintly challenging expression on his face, but Peggy didn’t stop him. There were two fingers of whiskey left, and anyway, Jack was a grown man. He was free to make his own bad choices. “You gonna put me to bed, too, mother?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “I can if you like.”

If he noticed the double entendre, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he sank back into the cushions and brought the whiskey glass to his lips. His throat worked as he swallowed. He looked pale and tired in the dim yellow light coming in through the curtains.

“Jack,” Peggy said, more gently. “What’s happened?”

“Where’s Sousa? I was hoping to give him the good news directly.”

“He had to stay behind for a bit. We may have had a break in the case; we’ve got a witness, in any case, and depending on what the FBI says, we may be able to issue a warrant for Judge Gorman’s arrest by tomorrow…” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll let him give you all the gory details later. Tell me what’s happened.”

“I’m out of a job,” Jack said bluntly, and knocked back a good portion of what was left in his glass. “Likely Sousa will get it, though. I’ll have to be sure to pass along my congratulations when he gets home. ‘Course, with the way things are going, odds are the whole agency will go tits-up in a year or so, so maybe I oughta hold off on that.”

She didn’t comment on the vulgarity. The rest of it was… well, not exactly expected, but also not, upon reflection, all that surprising. She and Daniel had both suspected that Congress would be looking for a scapegoat once the dust settled, and Jack was the most obvious target. He was young, he was recognizable, and he’d recently burned his bridges with a lot of very powerful people. He had to have known it was coming, but she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t told them earlier; it was more surprising, actually, that he’d stayed to raid Daniel’s whiskey stash instead of making his escape to a nice, anonymous hotel room. Jack usually preferred to lick his wounds in private. An encouraging sign, maybe. She wasn’t sure. “Senator Girard, I take it?”

Jack stared down into the depths of his glass, tilting it from side to side and watching the play of light in the amber liquid. “Stopped by about an hour ago. Sorry you missed him.”

“I’m not.”

“He’s a nice guy. For a Senator, anyway. Used to come over for dinner on Sundays, before my mom passed. Him and my dad are still poker buddies.” His voice was bitter.

Those brief sentences were more than she’d ever heard Jack say about his family. Peggy reached out and gripped his knee— the only part of him in reach that she could be reasonably sure was uninjured— squeezing tightly. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“You’re not gonna tell me I had it coming?”

“No.” Even if it were true— and it wasn’t, not really— it wouldn’t be kind. That wasn’t always something she cared about with Jack, but right now, in the dim silence of the living room, she could sense a fragility to him that frightened her. It was as though one wrong word might make him shatter.

It wasn’t just the job, she thought. Although that was probably part of it.

Jack managed a lopsided smile. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Anyway, I…” he trailed off, reached for his whiskey, and then paused, looking at her hand on his knee like he’d just noticed it was there. Before she could pull back, he tentatively settled his own hand over hers. Gently, mindful of his injuries, she turned her palm toward his and laced their fingers together. His skin was a shade too warm, from the burns, probably. She lifted their joined hands to her lips and kissed the back of his knuckles.

Jack’s fingers twitched, then curled around hers, but his voice, when he spoke, was cautious. “Peggy?”

He was watching her with something that wasn’t quite wariness, but wasn’t very far off from it. The sharp lines of his face seemed softened in the diffuse light, his blue eyes dark, his lips parted.

On her way back from the office, she had come up with any number of very logical, rational, well-reasoned arguments for the arrangement she hoped the three of them could come to, but in that moment, they seemed to have all flown from her mind. She leaned forward instead, and kissed him softly on the mouth.

He breathed in sharply against her lips, but when she started to pull back he followed— reaching up to touch her cheek with the tips of his fingers, his lips parting against hers, the soft curl of his tongue and the flavor of whiskey.

Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over. Jack sat back against the sofa, let out a long, shaky breath, and then reached for his whiskey glass and downed the rest of it in a single gulp.

“What,” he said, voice rough, “the _hell_ , Carter?”

Peggy swallowed. Her heart was pounding, she realized, her cheeks hot. “I should think you of all people would know a kiss when you got one.”

“Sousa…”

“I rather think he’d like to kiss you as well. I _know_ you’d like to kiss him. Again.” Jack stared at her, and she arched her eyebrows at him, feeling a bit steadier. “What, is that a bridge too far? I saw you yesterday.”

“Jesus.” He dragged a hand through his hair, disarranging the soft blond strands. “Peggy, what are we doing? You can’t just…”

“Why can’t I?” He started to open his mouth, and she shook her head. “Jack, if I’ve utterly misread this situation, say so, and I will apologize profusely and never mention it again. Have I?”

He licked his lips, and for a moment she was terrified that he was going to say, _yes_ , that this was all about to come crashing down— and then he dropped his head back against the sofa cushions and began laughing quietly. “No,” he said finally. There was a note of wry, defeated amusement in his voice, as though he was conceding an argument she hadn’t even known they were having. “Course you haven’t.”

“Oh,” Peggy said. “Well. Good, then.”

Jack dropped his hand and looked up at her. “Just so we’re clear on this, where exactly are we going with this? Because I’m about to go up in front of Congress and step down graciously for the good of the SSR and, not so incidentally, my own skin, and I’m not so sure how that’s gonna work out if it comes out that I’m sleeping with two of my agents. Especially if one of them is a man.”

Trust Jack to be blunt and practical about the whole business. “Well, I’m not suggesting we take out an advert in the _Times_.”

He smiled a little at that. “What are you suggesting?”

“Right now, I’m suggesting that you kiss me again. And when Daniel gets home, perhaps we can… go from there.”

“It’s good to know you’ve thought this through, Carter,” he said, but he leaned over and kissed her again, and this time he did not pull away.

* * *

They were still on the sofa when Daniel got home some time later, still more or less dressed. Peggy heard the door swing open, the soft tap of Daniel’s crutch. “So, I talked to Chief Hoffman at the FBI, and it looks like we should get the…” His voice trailed off as the door clicked shut behind him, and he said, in a very different tone, “Oh. So I guess you guys… talked.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure,” Jack said easily, but his whole body had gone tense under Peggy’s hands. Painfully so, by the slight hiss of his breath. He didn’t pull away from her, though, so that was encouraging.

Peggy stroked a soothing palm over his shoulder, which did not relax at all. “Don’t sound so put-upon,” she said. “Daniel, why don’t you take off your jacket and come sit down?”

She could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, then he nodded and leaned his crutch against the wall to shrug out of his sports jacket. In his shirtsleeves, he made his way slowly across the room, hesitated, and sat down on the other side of Jack.

Jack rolled his head to the side to smile up at him, lazily. His hand was still resting on Peggy’s leg. She could feel the tension of his fingers through the thin layer of nylon, but there was no sign of it on his face. “Hey, Sousa.”

“Hey,” Daniel said quietly.

“It turns out your girlfriend is quite the forward-thinking woman.”

Daniel’s lips turned up slightly. “Yeah. I know.”

“So,” Jack said—trying, very clearly and without much success, to sound disinterested, “what’s your take on… all this?”

Daniel glanced over at Jack’s hand, which was still resting just above her knee, her thin cotton dress bunched up slightly above his fingers, and then up at Peggy’s face. There was a heat in his dark eyes that made her feel warm and flushed, that made her wish, selfishly, that Jack was a little less battered. He couldn’t move easily or without pain, and that meant that the options at present were… limited. Unfortunately.

“My take on all this?” Daniel asked.

Jack lifted his chin. “Yeah.”

Daniel glanced up at her again, and this time he was smiling. “My take on all this is that Peggy is usually right,” he said, and curled a gentle hand around the back of Jack’s head, and kissed him.

* * *

On some level, Jack had always been expecting it to all go to hell. The job, and the tentative friendship he’d managed to salvage with first Peggy and then Daniel— things like that never lasted. They always broke eventually, and he’d made a career out of picking himself up, spackling over the ugly cracks in his veneer, and carrying on. That was how he’d made it through the war, that was how he’d made it in the SSR, and that was damn well how he’d planned to make it through the humiliating ordeal of resigning the one job that had ever really meant something to him. Pick himself up, plaster on a smile, and keep moving. Get back to New York with his dignity intact, and leave the two lovebirds to their business on the west coast. Leave Sousa with an agency to run, if nothing else.

Somehow, instead, he’d ended up on a couch in a quiet living room in Pasadena, with Peggy curled up on one side of him and Daniel on the other, kissing him like… well, like a man who’d been thinking about this for a while. Daniel’s hand was in his hair, and Peggy’s was on his shoulder, and he’d lost track of where he was touching them, where he ended and they began.

He tilted his chin, reaching up with his free hand to pull Daniel in closer, to angle the kiss into something wet and open-mouthed, and Daniel made an involuntary noise in the back of his throat that sent a needle of heat through the pit of his stomach. Peggy’s hand had migrated down over his chest, skimming so lightly that he could barely feel her fingers through the thin fabric of his shirt, to settle just above his belt.

Jack shifted on the couch, arching into her touch, and the movement torqued his chest in just the right way to abruptly remind him of the busted ribs he’d managed to blissfully forget for the past thirty seconds or so. He broke the kiss, curling his shoulders forward, dropping his hand; hissed, “God _damn_ it.”

“What is it?” Daniel asked, sitting back, his dark eyes wide and anxious. Jack really, really wanted to say something reassuring, but he wasn’t sure he could form a coherent sentence at the moment. “Jack?”

“Broken ribs,” Jack managed, and then, eloquently, “fuck.”

“Oh,” Daniel said, with something that sounded a lot like relief.

Jack took a long, slow breath through his nose, then let it out, and took another. “You two really need to work on your timing,” he said, when his chest felt a little less like it was full of splintered glass.

Peggy snorted, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, God. Jack, I’m so sorry, I’m not—”

“Yeah, yeah, get your laughs in while you can,” Jack muttered, but he could feel himself smiling too.

Daniel pushed himself up from the couch. “I’ll get your pills,” he said, when Jack and Peggy both looked up at them. “And maybe something to eat. We can come back to this… maybe later.”

“Yeah, well, looks like I’ll have plenty of time for it,” Jack said. When Daniel raised his eyebrows, he added. “Congress has politely asked for my resignation. Good news is, you’re head of the pack for the top slot.”

“I’ll pass,” Daniel said easily.

“What?”

“Peggy can tell you all about it,” Daniel said, and started out of the room.

Jack turned to look at her. “What’s he talking about?”

“We’ve been… tossing an idea around,” she said slowly.

“What kind of idea?”

“The SSR is a wartime agency. It was only a matter of time until Congress decided to defund it.”

“They haven’t decided—”

“But they will,” she cut across him. “Jack, you know it as well as I do. Even without the recent scandals, our days were numbered. This has just sped up the inevitable.”

Jack pulled himself up, slowly, cautious of his injuries. “What are you saying?”

“Daniel and I… and a few other people at the office, the people we trust, we’ve been talking about the idea of perhaps,” she hesitated. “Perhaps forming an independent agency. Howard has already agreed to assist in lobbying for funding. We were going to tell you, it’s just not the sort of thing one discusses over the telephone.”

“I’ll say,” Jack said. “You realize that’s cutting it pretty close to treason, right?”

Peggy’s lips quirked in a smile. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“Tell that to the Joint Chiefs.”

“Jack, we’re not suggesting that we go off on our own and form some sort of rogue spy agency—”

“—not that some people haven’t suggested it,” Daniel remarked, coming back into the room with a pill bottle, which he handed to Jack. “Naming no names.”

“Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed,” Peggy said archly. “And we’re working on a proposal. I suspect that with the amount of money and political pressure Howard Stark can exert—”

“—not to mention the fact that it’s a legitimate need,” Daniel interjected.

“Yes, quite. At any rate, I suspect we’ll get our funding.”

Jack blinked at her. “And you were going to tell me all this.”

“Eventually,” Peggy said, smiling. “I was hoping you’d want to be involved, but we didn’t want to involve you in a conflict of interest.”

“What, like this isn’t?”

“Well,” she said. “We weren’t anticipating this particular conflict of interest. Or at least I wasn’t.”

“Sousa?” Jack asked, quirking an eyebrow at Daniel.

“Hey,” Daniel said. He looked like he was trying for bravado, and he almost managed it. “To be fair, you kissed me first.”

“I thought I was dying,” Jack protested. “Doesn’t count.”

Daniel met his eyes evenly. “Doesn’t it?”

Jack looked away first. Cleared his throat, looked down at the pill bottle in his hand. “Look, Daniel…”

“It’s fine,” Daniel said quietly.

“Is it?”

“Yeah.” Daniel reached out to touch his cheek gently; when Jack looked up at him, he leaned down and kissed him briefly on the lips. “It is.”

“Well, far be it from me to argue with that kind of logic,” Jack muttered, but he could feel a dopey smile unfolding on his face, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Peggy leaned over him to pluck the bottle out of his hand. She opened it and shook a pill into her palm, which she handed to him. “Here. Take this, and let’s go get some lunch. And then, perhaps…” She looked at Daniel, then at Jack, and smiled. “Perhaps we can talk about the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can also be found on [Tumblr](http://glorious-spoon.tumblr.com/). If you enjoyed this story, please take a moment to let me know!


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